Buyers typically conduct transactions with many different merchants for acquiring many different types of goods and services (hereinafter “items”). Merchants, who are purveyors of these items, often perform transactions with buyers in person at the merchant's place of business or other point-of-sale (POS) location. Sometimes a buyer may not have sufficient funds to buy a desired item at a particular time. This may cause the merchant to lose a potential sale and may cause the buyer to have to return to the merchant's POS location later to perform a transaction for purchasing the item.